Unrestricted Warfare: An Assessment of Chinese Intelligence Operations, Infrastructure Penetration, and Influence Campaigns Against the United States (2020-2025)

This comprehensive assessment examines the operationalization of China's unrestricted warfare doctrine against the United States from 2020-2025. Developed by PLA Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui following the 1991 Gulf War, unrestricted warfare represents a paradigm shift from conventional military confrontation to asymmetric operations across multiple domains.

This study analyzes documented Chinese operations including: Volt Typhoon's five-year penetration of critical infrastructure systems; Salt Typhoon's compromise of nine major U.S. telecommunications companies affecting over one million users; systematic academic infiltration through Confucius Institutes and intellectual property theft costing an estimated $500 billion annually; congressional penetration operations targeting rising political figures and senior officials; and state-level influence campaigns exemplified by the Linda Sun case.

The analysis demonstrates how China employs cyber operations, political influence, academic exploitation, and infrastructure pre-positioning to achieve strategic objectives while avoiding direct military confrontation. Drawing on government reports, intelligence assessments, and primary source materials, this work examines the doctrine's principles of asymmetry, omnidirectionality, and minimal consumption as manifested in contemporary operations. The study concludes that unrestricted warfare represents a coherent strategic framework specifically designed to neutralize American conventional military advantages by exploiting vulnerabilities in open democratic societies.